Mary Allen was elected as an Evansville at-large council member in late 2023.
As a Democrat, she’s going after current Rep. Mark Messmer’s seat. Messmer, a President Trump-aligned Republican, will have to run again in the 2026 midterm election.
US House District 8 includes 750,000 residents in southwest Indiana, from beyond Mount Vernon in the Southwest, to north of Indianapolis.
Allen is a veteran, wife, grandmother and owner of a sustainability-focused business. She served for 10-years in an urban non-profit ministry and chairs the board of the Enterprise Zone.
She outlined some of this experience at the at-large candidate forum during her 2023 campaign.
“Any of those endeavors have stemmed from my desire to always serve and be a part of the development and growth in our community,” she said.
She will officially announce her candidacy at the event Wednesday afternoon at Wesselman Park in Evansville.
There is still a primary process before she can face Messmer. Daniel George is listed as another candidate for the democrats and James Burke as an independent.
This district is sometimes called “The Bloody Eighth” due to the alternating control of Republicans and Democrats.
